We are sensitive to users' pain from congestion on IRCTC website: Rakesh Kumar Tandon

Clogged bandwidth resulting from too many users logging in at the same time is one of the biggest challenges faced byRakesh Kumar Tandon, the man who helms Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation - India's largest e-commerce website which handles online ticketing operations. Tandon, in a candid interview to ET'sViraj Desai and Harsimran Julkasays he is sensitive to the pain people suffer because of this congestion.

Why is the bandwidth congestion acute during the morning window?

The problem is that as the counters open at 8 am sharp, the number of concurrent connections peaks. We have seen a maximum peak of up to 8 lakh concurrent connections - it means there are 8 lakh people knocking on our firewalls during the first 10-15 minutes from 8 o'clock. This number goes up ahead of festivals and summer vacations. We have a capacity for 1,500-2000 successful transactions a minute. So, naturally there's congestion.

What steps are you taking to ease this congestion?

Demand will always be there, in fact it will grow. We have added 52 servers which cater to peak traffic today and have plans to add 18 more servers. Scaling up is not the only solution. We have to add more trains and routes. If we were to increase our bandwidth to unlimited capacity, people in rural areas, who don't have net access will always be deprived of Tatkal (reservations made a day ahead) tickets since all will be booked within the first 15 minutes of counters opening at 8am.

So, is it a deliberate strategy by IRCTC to not increase website capacity to allow more transactions per minute?

No. We have increased our bandwidth 10 times, to allow more people to come and log in. But traffic keeps on peaking, especially during a particular time in the morning. Suppose, we were to increase capacity to unlimited ticket bookings a minute, then most tickets will be booked in the first hour. Of the 8 lakh people who log on simultaneously between 8 am 8.10am, only 50,000 manage to get tickets.

There are about 7.5 lakh people who go dissatisfied each day. If we increase our capacity to handle 15 lakh concurrent connections, then about 14.5 lakh customers will go dissatisfied. The solution is to increase the capacity and number of trains. My aim is to double the 50,000 bookings to over-a-lakh successful bookings in the first hour, which will reduce the number of dissatisfied customers.

What is the reason that almost one-in-four is a failed transaction on IRCTC website?

Failure of transactions may be for several reasons. Slow speed of online services of various banks - we have tie-ups with 18 of them - is a major cause. The payment gateway transaction takes about 1.5-2 minutes. But for some banks, take longer, resulting often in failure. There can be customer-centric reasons like no money in account. Sometimes, customer gives a berth preference and it takes time for the system to find a particular berth. By that time a ticket may already be booked. We have already identified 7 to 8 issues. The aim is to reduce the time taken for each transaction.

What are the steps IRCTC is taking to reduce this transaction time?

We are looking at a rolling deposit system in which customers can deposit advance money into an account. They won't have to go to a payment gateway then. They would not have to wait for two minutes for using the netbanking operations. I have put forward this challenge to our technologists and the systems architecture for it is being worked out.

Also, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation works with the Ministry of Railways on a system of advance money. Every day I deposit about Rs 50 lakh in the bank account of Indian Railways -- advance money for the tickets I will buy from them that day. We are extending the same system for other websites such as MakeMytrip.com and Yatra.com to book rail tickets, which will ease the load on our site.

Why customer's money is not instantly credited back after a failed transaction?

After a failed transaction, a report goes back to the bank that a transaction has failed but money has been deducted. The banks make a report and send it to us. It takes 2 to 3 days. We release the money as we get the report.

How do you look at your tenure with IRCTC?

When I took charge of IRCTC in 2009, we used to book about 40,000 e-tickets every day. Now it has shot up to 4-4.5 lakh bookings a day. It is a quantum leap. Of course, we have become India's largest e-commerce website -- IRCTC booked about 10 crore tickets worth Rs 8,000 crore in 2010-11. Today, we are able to manage 8 lakh concurrent transactions. In 2009, we used to do about 10,000 successful transactions in the first hour. Now it has gone up to 50,000 bookings per hour. My goal is to increase it to 1 lakh bookings.

Is IRCTC targeting the hospitality and tourism on a big scale?

We have a tie-up with about 8,000 hotels across India. These are 3 star hotels. We have not gone for 4-star and above because majority of the railway customers are not the airline customers. Over the last 3 years, our revenue through tourism has grown from Rs 10 crore to Rs 70 crore. By the end of this fiscal, we hope to touch Rs 100 crore. Our corporate booking segment is also growing. We are looking to tie-up with PSUs for their total travel arrangements. The company also has ambitious plans for air ticketing.

It has benefitted the consumers who are net savvy. However, the rural Indian is still going to the reservation counters. With this scheme agents are also blocked from transacting on the net or counters in the morning.